Grieve
by Tycho
Summary: Dawn is having trouble dealing with her sister's death. A stranger helps. A/N: I got a few requests to write about the boy Dawn was dating in my other story "Harsh Language?". This is where it begins, but is far from over if I get enough feedback


Grieve  
  
by Tycho  
  
tychocelchu@optusnet.com.au  
  
Spoilers: After "The Gift"  
  
Disclaimer: Whedon is God. I'm just a little devil.  
  
Summary: Dawn is having trouble dealing with her sister's death. A stranger helps.  
  
A/N: I got a few requests to write about the boy Dawn was dating in my other story "Harsh Language?". This is where it begins, but is far from over if I get enough feedback!  
  
Archive: FF.net and anywhere I'm asked.  
  
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Dawn fled. It was just too much to take. Worse than it was after her mom had died. At least after her mother's funeral there'd been no wake. But as this was an unofficial funeral, they couldn't very well turn the few away who'd turned up. There weren't many, but even those were too many. People surrounding her, offering condolences, both sincere and false. What good were condolences anyway? They didn't achieve anything. Just made you grit your teeth, paint a smile on your face and politely thank them; all the while hoping to God they didn't want to share a memory. And hoping they were the last.  
  
But they never were.  
  
Travers had been the final straw. That stuffed shirt, self righteous bastard, had practically been gloating. A new Chosen One had been found, right in merry ol' London. Dawn could almost hear every word running through his scheming head -: new, British, controllable, not like *her*, if *she* had been obedient then *she* would still be alive.  
  
Soddin' pillock. Somehow that particular insult of Spike's sounded just right. Dawn wished she could have said it out loud, but she refused to give him the satisfaction. Instead she had ignored him, one of the more irritating insults she'd learned over the years.  
  
So now she was sitting here, on the front step, where she hoped to be alone for a while. For a time she sat there in the dappled sunlight that peirced the boughs of the oak tree. Sat and let her mind be blessedly blank. To think of nothing, plan nothing.......remember nothing.  
  
For a time. Time itself seemed to slow, the world to stop turning. Dawn found herself drifting, dozing.....  
  
She sat bolt upright. No! Not sleep! For sleep was where the dreams were, and in the dreams - the memories. And she couldn't face them, as the dark circles under her eyes could atest to. Not .....  
  
-a shining portal-  
  
.....that. Not......  
  
-a figure jumping into the blinding light, then lying broken amongst the rubble-  
  
Dawn desperately sought to focus her attention elsewhere. Anywhere but where her thoughts were going. Because if she thought about..... she might.....  
  
There! under the tree. A boy. Young, about her age. Shoulder length dark hair graced a lightly freckled face. His eyes were closed for some reason. Suddenly they opened, and he smiled softly. Dawn had seen many smiles before, some genuine, some filled with amusement; mocking smiles and false smiles. This one was ? She didn't know exactly. Soft but not too much, no laughter on a day that seemed to deny the existence of happiness, but hoped it would be there another day; a smile that went beyond the lips and mouth and into the very eyes. Pale blue eyes that were full of both understanding and wisdom, yet somehow retiaining the innocence of a child's view of the world. Eyes that Dawn could easily lose herself in.  
  
Suddenly, or so it seemed, he was there on the step with her. Dawn blinked a few times as if that would clear the fatigue from her system.  
  
"You hate it, don't you."  
  
Dawn feigned confusion. He was just like the rest of them, next he'd be saying how he 'understood'. "Hate what?"  
  
"That they," the boy glanced inside the house, "Don't understand what you're going through."  
  
Great. Here it comes. "And I suppose you do?" Dawn's tone would have given Harmony a hint about her opinion.  
  
He shook his head slowly. "Only you can know how you feel. Everyone else can only see the world from behind their own eyes. The rest is imagination."  
  
Suddenly Dawn felt like a small child again. In the space of minutes he'd made two observations about her that had hit the proverbial bullseye. She was frightened of what he might say next.  
  
"But I do know one thing."  
  
Dawn interrupted him, venom thick in her throat. "Let me guess, 'time heals all', or how about my personal favorite, 'it will get easier'. Spare me. What could you, a boy I've never met, possibly know about me?" She glared at him, daring him to utter just one little platitude.  
  
"It's not your fault."  
  
And there it was. A platitude. The one she'd been dreading all day, but had yet to hear. Somehow this complete stranger had managed to see right through her and right to the core of the thing that kept her awake at night. Dawn looked down at her feet and tried to say that she didn't know what he was talking about. But the words couldn't, wouldn't leave her lips.  
  
His finger lifted her chin up level with his own, but she kept her eyes down as he said it again. "It's not your fault."  
  
Dawn wanted to tell him he was wrong, that it was her fault. It was all her fault. If not for her, the world would still have her sister to protect it. *It's all my fault.* Dawn looked up to say exactly that, but something in his eyes stopped her, and she couldn't look away again. He said it a third time. "It's not your fault."  
  
Tears were threatening now, her control wavering. Just two little words, if she could say them then he'd be wrong and it would be over and ....  
  
"It's not."  
  
Right number, but wrong words. These hit home and the dam broke.  
  
-------------------  
  
Inside the house, Spike was watching from the window, careful to keep out of the sun's rays. He'd watched the entire conversation but could hear nothing. What they'd been talking about he could only guess, but whatever it was had resulted in Dawn sobbing into the boy's shoulder. Spike was tempted to do violence on the lad but was dissuaded by the gentle manner in which the boy was comforting her. *He got her to grieve. Good.*  
  
The boy looked up and met Spike's gaze. Something seemed to pass between the vampire and mortal, and both acknowledged it with a nod. Spike turned away from the window and returned to his daily routine of self-blame. Like Dawn there was only one person who could convince him that Buffy's death wasn't his fault, that he didn't have to spend day after day consumed by dreams of 'what-ifs' and 'might-have-beens'.  
  
Unfortunately that person was dead. 


End file.
